Sold To The Man I Hate

Ava had one leg over the railing when her father's voice snagged her from behind. "Ava. What are you doing?" She didn't answer immediately. Three garment bags pressed into her shoulder. Six floors down, a bus pulled away from the curb like it was any other Tuesday. "Leaving," she said. "You can't." "Watch me." "You already signed the contract." Her foot was back over the railing on its own before she'd even decided to do so. "What contract." He didn't answer for a moment. That was enough. She was across the room in four steps; he barely reacted as she scooped the folder off his desk, his hand closing on thin air half a second later. Inside her name typed, a signature that was close enough to fool anyone but the one person whose name was just below hers, already an unknown entity to her. "I never signed this." "I had the power of attorney. Your mother-" "You forged it." "I had every legal right-" "That's not what I asked." He stopped. Some vital component in his face collapsed, like a decades-old dam finally admitting to the stress it had long been holding back. "The company's going under, Ava. We’ll be finished by Friday if there’s no other way." "Finished how?" "We owe Cross Enterprises an obscene sum we have no way of paying off." She waited, he didn't seem inclined to fill in the enormous blank of how and in the silence she could feel the floor tilt beneath her just enough to make her want to ask what should probably already be coming. "And?" "And Julian Cross made him an offer," he didn't look at her now. "And what he wanted in return for covering us was not payment." She looked back down at the folder, at his name on it right under hers in the small, stark print beneath the words 'Terms of Marriage' and it all fell perfectly into place. She wasn’t crying. Part of her thought she should have been by now, part was still so slow to catch up to this absurdity. But she was completely numb, so perfectly calm she felt like that was the only possible state right before you irrevocably did something you could never undo. "I'm talking to him myself," she said, and walked out the door with the folder still in her hand. It took eleven minutes to get to Cross Enterprises; she spent all of them re-reading the same paragraph of the contract like if she looked at it enough it would miraculously change. The office building was something built specifically to make visitors feel small before they had even begun speaking. She didn't bother speaking to anyone before she went into Julian's office, brushing past the secretary without a pause and right up to his desk, the view from which the entire city seemed foldable, disposable. Julian didn't look up. He was right-handed, he was writing something left-handed so his handwriting for now was illegible. He finished the sentence before he raised his gaze, unhurried, like he already expected her there, like she'd slipped easily into some foreseen opening. "Miss Bellamy." "You bought me." "I made your father an offer. It was accepted." "Say the words, 'I married him for convenience.' Say them out loud." He set the pen down at a perfect right angle to the desk, and finally looked her in the eye, as if trying to size up precisely how much her anger would serve him. "You're angrier than I anticipated." "Did you expect less?" "I expected tears." A pause. "This is more useful." Ava dropped the folder onto his desk with enough force to spread the contents. "I want out." "There is no getting out." "Why not." "Because without this, your father's company collapses within the week," he said, flatly, evenly. "And the reason why has your name attached to it." "You'd let all that fall apart just to prove some point?" "I'm not proving a point. I'm stating the facts of what would happen if you leave." Ava placed her hands flat on the desk, forcing herself to take a deep breath before she could continue. "Fine," she said, her voice trembling but steady. "I'll go through with it. But you and I both know that it’s not about anything other than what it is." "I had no intention of pretending otherwise." She stood up, and just as she reached the door he called her back. This time there was no gentle note at all to his voice, no kindness either; only caution, the same quality that made you step carefully out onto fragile ice. "One more thing," he said. She paused, hand on the knob. "My lawyers looked over your father's financial statements this morning, typical due diligence for acquisition." He picked up his pen, twirling it briefly between his fingers before putting it down again. "Some money appears to have disappeared already, and this before I ever made an offer on his company." Ava slowly turned back around. "Disappeared how?" " I'm not entirely sure yet." His eyes held hers for a split second, and for the first time she didn’t know exactly what to see behind them. " But it's evident your father did not lose this company alone, Miss Bellamy. There was likely an accomplice involved." He went back to his desk, as if the meeting had ended. Ava hovered, the folder already cold in her hand, the ground that she thought was stable tilting sideways once again.